


in the chambers of the sea

by timeinthetardis



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeinthetardis/pseuds/timeinthetardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Emma is a siren who becomes fascinated by Killian during her attempt to claim the lives of 1000 men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the chambers of the sea

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T.S. Eliot.

Emma thinks to herself (every time) that this time will be the last, that she will finally drag him beneath the waves with her and gorge herself on his final breaths. Her fingers curl inward, aching to draw him down, down, down to the floor of the sea, where he can sit with the rest of her treasures and she can push him to the back of her mind like a fine piece of jewelry that can only be worn on special occasions. The older sirens have marked Killian Jones for death at Emma's hand, and the scent of him in her territory makes her ache to pull him below the waves.

But she sees his ship in _her_ ocean, swirling in the currents that _she_ calls forth, and his unabashed admiration for the artistry of her work makes her hesitate. It's something in his eyes when he looks at her, or maybe it's his endless supply of stories and lewd jokes that make her snort her laughter, or maybe it's that he actively goes looking for a creature designed to kill him- she does not know, and Emma is not used to not knowing things about handsome men. She swims up to meet him as he waits in the tiny rowboat by the _Jolly Roger_ , and she bursts out of the water to press a kiss to his lips.

(He tastes of the sea.)

-

Perhaps sparing his life (for the moment) is not the kindness he assumes it is: Emma knows the magic that flows through her calls to him just as the ocean does, for they are one and the same while she lives within its embrace. Magical though she is, she does not know if it is the draw of the sea in his blood, or the salty sting of her kiss, that brings him back to her each time. She does not care to ask, just as long as he is ruined for life on land, without her.

-

The full extent of her mercy amounts to one life saved, or least granted a stay of execution; while Killian Jones accepts her kisses and his continued existence above the sea, all others who dare to approach her ocean find themselves victims of her sanguinary wiles. She calls to them upon their ships, sings them away from safer shores, tempts them with words and music and her own body until they fling themselves into her waiting arms. 

Their lips touch hers only when she sucks the last salty breaths from their bodies. They taste of the sea, but on a superficial level that does not satisfy her the way Killian's lips do.

(She tries to talk to the others, once or twice, but they cannot hold her attention long enough to keep her from pulling them under the water. He is the only one who has distracted her beyond the horrible itch in her fingers and the ache in her heart; it would worry her, if she did not plan to kill him someday.)

-

If she follows the routes his ship normally takes, it is only because there is such a delicious array of new naval officers, old pirates, and handsome noblemen available on the ships Killian plunders. He crosses paths with more men marked for death than anyone she has ever seen, and his mad-cap adventures among them always make her laugh. It suits her tastes exactly, stealing the last breaths of men who came too near her territory (as she deemed it: everywhere, in water and wind and sky) and following it up with the rough press of Killian's lips against hers. Intoxicating, the flavor of death mixing with that peculiar salty-sweetness of his mouth, and when she discovers the combination she cannot do without it. 

She wonders if she will enjoy it again, without his kiss to finish her feasts, but it hardly matters. Her debt is nearly paid in full, now- a thousand deaths will grant her freedom from this cursed aching emptiness inside her, and she can live as she chooses.

-

He comes to her willingly when she calls for him, wading through the water like a man in a dream. She takes his hand and pulls him out through the waves, calming their frantic pulsing against the beach as she brings him deeper into the sea. When she turns to him, he kisses her; she drags him under the surface, and his arms tighten around her. He brings a hand to her face, thumb rubbing gently across her cheek, as they sink into the darkness.

 

(but she pulls him back to the beach, freedom be damned; if she must always ache with an unfulfilled need, and destroy her soul with her thirst for murder, then so be it.)

-

She haunts his ship routes, though she takes care not to let him see her. For all that he stares out across the waves, and sets watches for those hours that he must retire to his cabin, he does not find her. Her fingers itch to draw new bodies down, her chest burns with a hollow pain, and her body spasms with the need for nourishment, but she cannot- will not- leave a path for him to follow. The others let his mark pass by untouched, watching her with guarded eyes as she moves through them, but they say nothing.

It feels like freedom, of a sort.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to stay updated on my writing (or join the fun of constant CS blogging), please feel free to check out my [tumblr](http://in-each-place-and-forever.tumblr.com/) and/or my [writing tumblr](http://distinct-elements-of-speech.tumblr.com/).


End file.
